


yeah, it's not technically bromance...

by doomedteaparty



Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Drabble Collection, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Mutual Pining, OC Romance Week, Romance, Slow Burn, there's only one bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-23
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2020-05-16 22:43:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19327606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doomedteaparty/pseuds/doomedteaparty
Summary: a week of horrible, horrible mutual pining across multiple AUs.(for OC Romance Week by ArtemisMoonSong)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> warning: mentions of alcohol, characters getting out of their wits, and very mild nsfw.

They were drunk.

He knew it. They both knew it. He had a list of _Things That Could Go Wrong in a Mercenary Job_ and _this_ almost hit all of the boxes. Nausea, vomiting, wanting to slam his head against the wall--wanting to slam _someone_ against the wall....

He grunted, reaching for the second bottle of wine—only to see his employer had already beaten him to it.

“Mine.”

His lips tugged into a small, triumphant smirk.

“Asshole.”

It had been a normal occurrence for the two of them to make fun of each other—filling their otherwise quiet journey with childish teasing and (what could have been) subtle flirting with the added layer of doubt. They weren’t being serious, of course. His employer isn't capable of being nothing but “serious”.

And if something happened that goes beyond that..., it's blamed on the drink.

He watched with a frown as Fanris drunk the rest of his wine; red liquids forming a line down his jaw and neck— _and those are such handsome jaw and neck_ —seeping into his purple scarf, diving deeper into....

"Want a taste?"

No, his employer did not say that. Or maybe he did. There was a glint of light coming from the wine bottle in front of him; red and black, sweet sickly purple—

_Shit._

_I hate being drunk._

"It's empty, Fahn," he retorted, swatting the bottle away from his view. "C'mon. I'll get you home."

The room started to sway when he managed to grab a hold of his hand. It felt... clammy, but warm; like fever. He was sure the wine bottle wasn'teven hot.

"Why is your palm—"

"No. No, no, no, no, Marc.... Don't take home.... No. No."

"What, why?"

Their eyes lingered for a second (which turned into half a minute, then a minute, then five minutes), before he forced himself to look away. "Sofie. Can't see me when I'm... like this...."

Their hands were still clutching onto each other.

Normally, in situations like this Marcurio would be the voice of reason to Fanris' muddled brain. He is the last line of defense between the innkeeper's flying tankard and his employer's fragile ass.  _"It's 2 am,"_  he could say.  _"She's probably asleep."_ He could say,  _"Stop moping around and get to it. If you keep drinking yourself to death, how am I supposed to get paid?"_

But this time, the wine caught on to them.

"... Sure."

Dragging him to the bar was an easy feat. Getting him to stay put wasn't. It took a lot of pulling and fighting, muttered curses and muffled  _‘I hate you’_ s uttered by the both of them—and it didn’t help that the alcohol had started to affect him, too. The room started to blur in a cacophony of sounds and colors.

There was a dark figure behind the bar. Black hair, green vest....

_Ghost? No._

_Innkeeper. Innkeeper._

“Old man’s out.... What’d ya need?” The innkeeper asked, completely toneless. His gaze turned towards the delirious man slumped against his shoulder. “Whoa. You two look  _completely_ wast—”

“Two rooms,” Marcurio interrupted. Was the inkeeper even real?  _He could be a ghost for all I know! Ghost. Ghost...._ “Two rooms.... We need... we need two rooms.”

“Why, yer’ having an argument or something? ... Oh. Oh, I see.” The ghost chuckled. “Sorry, mate. You’re outta luck. Room’s full.” There was a pause as he took a quick glance at the business ledger under the bar, frowned, and returned back to them. “Eh... eh, wait. We got an empty room upstairs.... The couple who rented it checked out early this evening.... Wanna take it?”

As if things couldn’t get any worse.

“... Two singles?”

“A double, actually.”

Marcurio grumbled. Hesitant, he took the small copper key the ghost had slid off across the bar, leaving him a pouch of septims in return. The ghost flashed him a toothy grin.

“So... I gotta ask.” There was silence for a while. “... What’d you see in that gremlin-lookin’ thing, huh?”

_What?_

Judging by his looks, he was referring to the man who passed out on his shoulder.

“No offense, but yer boyfriend is—well, uh..., he’s a walkin' freak show.” He gestured towards Fanris. “Face looks... okay, but the rest? Wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole. I bet the  _inside_ 's just as—”

“Say one moreword and I’ll fry your brains out.”

_He’s not a freak show._

The ghost-innkeeper’s grin slowly dissipated, turning into a fearful, dissident cringe. Marcurio gave him another sharp glare before walking away.

_... He’s not even my boyfriend._

The room was directly visible from the stairs, next to another locked room and right in front of several tables and chairs. He fished the key out of his pocket and unlocked the door. Fanris had his arm draped around him the whole time; his left cheek pressed against the other man’s chest.

“Y'should listen to 'im.... He’s right.”

On a normal occasion, he would wrench this man away like he would an insect. But  _something_ about Fanris tonight felt... nice. 

“Huh?”

_His touch, his arms, his impish smile and dazed eyes._

“Won’t touch me with a ten-foot pole. Or... uh, or a stick. Stick is bad. Bad like... like hot poker.” Fanris rambled some more. “Y'know, back in that place, he says I'm a freak. But they’ll pay more for a freak show. Treated me like a pet...."

The room was small, with a double bed in the middle, a half-empty bookcase, and several chairs. There was a desk at the far right corner with empty wine bottles probably left by the previous occupants. The air reeked of flowery perfume and stale alcohol.

Marcurio sighed, pried the man's arms off of his waist and let him sit on the edge of the bed. "You're drunk, Fahn. Just... just go to sleep."

"I’m not drunk."

"Yeah, you are. You're ranting about hot poker."

Fanris laughed at that.

There was a weird sense of familiarity about his laugh that he couldn't place. Sore and heavy, both forced and genuine—as if Fahn couldn't quite decide whether to be happy or sad. Something about this man terrified and fascinated him at the same time.

He was about to get up and leave, when his employer spoke up.

"Hey..., where you goin'?"

"Outside. I’m gonna sleep outside."

Fanris cocked an eyebrow.

"Why not here? You're the one renting it."

His heart froze.

"No, I, uh...."

"C'mon." His employer gestured at the empty space next to him. "Better than sleeping on the floor.... Floor's not comfy."

Marcurio hesitated for a moment—staring at the bed for what felt like hours before finally climbing onto the space next to Fahn and sunk his head into the pillow. Fanris was right. It  _is_ comfy. The duvet smelled like wine, though.

Five inches apart from each other. 

_Good enough_.

He wasn’t tired enough to sleep, though. His head was pounding and his chest felt like it had been ripped apart and attached again, but his eyes wouldn’t stay shut. The room began to sway again.

_Lights flickering in and out._

Fanris still stared at him, drunk as ever. His lips crooked upwards. Smiling.

_I wish—_

It took him a moment to process everything when the man suddenly pulled himself close, planted his wine-scented mouth against Marcurio’s lips, and kissed him deep. Their bodies tensed, anticipating rejection. They  _knew_ they could blame it on the drink. 

_We could blame it on the drink._

Fanris was never really drunk, anyway.

He closed his eyes, and let the wave take him in. Their bodies melted away as the morning sun drew closer.

.

.


	2. #2: clothes swap!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning: nope!

“I’m not wearing that.”

“Oh, c’mon. You gotta show more  _muscles,_  my good man.”

“I’m a mage! I don’t need—"

Fanris was hardly an attractive man, he knew that—but a wide smile on his lips always seemed to stop Marcurio dead in his tracks. Possibly due to how unnerving it looked next to the burn scars. Whatever.

“—oh, screw you.”

Not wanting to torment the mage with his presence any further, Fanris strolled out of the mining cave they were in, humming an out-of-tune Bosmeri song as he did so. At least the smell of aspen trees and the evening air were more tolerable than the scent of iron from the mines.

They had been hiding in this cave after a pickpocketing job gone awry—half of Riften citizens were literally out for their blood just a few hours earlier--and were waiting for the perfect opportunity to sneak out. The trees make for a perfect cover, but not for long. Lots of guards and soldiers were patrolling just outside the woods. They needed an  _actual_  cover.

Fanris was the one who thought of the idea to switch clothes. The guards were looking for an Imperial mage and a Bosmer thief (or Breton, or Bosmer/Breton, or Bosmer/Bosmer/Breton—if they ever cared for the specifics),  _not_  a Bosmer mage and an Imperial thief. Right?

Marcurio, however, found the idea immeasurably stupid.

_“How is_ that _going to work?”  
_

_“I always wear a mask, remember? You use that. I can use that hood-thing your skirt has. Win-win.”  
_

_“... For the second time, mage robes. Not mage_ skirt _. Your clothes won’t even fit me!”_

_“Nah, it’ll fit. My friend in the Guild made it two sizes bigger. The least you’ll have to worry about is your hair getting in the way.”_

Of course things wouldn’t be as easy as that, and they would still have to sneak their way out through the long way. Walk southeast towards the border, then turn around past the dragon burial mound, then the Shadow Stone. Not to mention the road between Riften’s South Gate and the farm right next to it were littered with guards.

Fanris looked down at his own attire. The orange robes that he had always associated with Marcurio now hung awkwardly on his figure, complete with the weird assortment of stains ranging from void salts (lightning spells?) and spilled magicka potion. The skirt was asymmetrical in shape, and the longer tip nearly reached his ankles. And the whole outfit smelled like Marcurio.

He crunched his nose at the realization.

_I hate his smell._

Not because he found it repulsive—no, they bathed at least once a day and  _that_  is considered excessive for an adventurer’s standard. Rather, there was something about it that reminded him of... something. Something.  _Something._ Fanris couldn’t quite remember it.

(But then again, he could scarce remember everything, these days.)

.

_Leaves rustling in the winds._ _Hot summer day._

_A perfectly smooth rock in the middle of the forest; two small figures sitting on top of it._

_White-Gold Tower stood forlornly in the distance._

_Two teenagers; talking._

_“Why you smell so weird?”  
_

_.  
_

The door behind him creaked open. Fanris turned around, fully expecting the mage to still be in his undershirt, yelling more expletives at—

“How does this look?”

...  _nevermind_.

He wasn’t expecting Marcurio to be standing behind him, wearing  _his_ full Thieves Guild gear and  _his_  favorite scarf. Some of the belts had been removed for the sake of practicality, and the cuirass became a tight fit on his body, but the rest of them... didn’t look so bad. Even the usual ponytail was gone, revealing long black hair with a few strands messily tucked behind his ears. 

“Fahn?”

_Oh shit, he looks good._

“Fahn?”

_don’t act stupid don’t act stupid don’t act stupid don’t act stupid don’t a—_

"FAHN?”

“You look STUPID!” he blurted out.  _Shit._ “... I mean, uh... uhm..., uh—yeah! You look, uhm, stupid. Sorry, but, uh... that look doesn’t work for you.”

Marcurio gave him a knowing simper. “You tell me. I had to break twelve stitches on your trousers just to get them to fit me.”

Deep down, Fanris knew that  _he_  already knew.

“You’re, uh..., you’re wearing my scarf, though.” . Mother’s dusty gray-and-purple scarf, which had previously never left his neck, was sitting neatly around Marcurio’s shoulder. A tarnished pendant, taken from an amulet of Mara, fastened the scarf’s fabric to the cuirass. For some reason, Fanris couldn’t take his eyes off of it.

The scarf was personal to him. The pendant even more so.  _He_ shouldn’t have worn it.

Marcurio must’ve caught on to that, because the next thing that came out of his mouth was: “Should I take it off?”

“No, no! No—I mean....”

Fanris sighed.

_... Mother’s going to kill me._

“I mean, uh—no. You, uh..., you look good with it. Still pretty funny. But uh..., you know.” He let out an awkward chuckle. “Not that it’s a bad thing.”

Marcurio scoffed. 

_Sure. Whatever._

An hour passed after that, and they were already halfway towards the Morrowind border. The sun was already setting when they took a right turn next to Forelhost, avoiding a bandit camp nearby and the Stendarr’s Beacon right in front of it. It was only a matter of time before they had to test their new disguise in front of the guards. If  _this_ doesn’t work....

“You look ridiculous, by the way.” Marcurio muttered to himself. Realizing that he had said it out loud, the man quickly added. “Uhh, I mean... in a  _adorable_ sort of way.”

“... Oh, I get it. Because I’m  _short.”_

“Unfortunately yes.”

They both laughed at that.

Somehow, he  _didn’t_ imagine his mother staring down at them from Aetherius, judging her son’s taste in a lover. Somehow, all he could imagine was... his mother; teary-eyed, with a huge smile on her wrinkly, tired face, watching her son and his lover from Aetherius, feeling an immense happiness for the both of them. She wouldn’t mind Marcurio wearing her scarf and pendant. She wouldn’t judge.

At least, that’s what Fanris hoped.

.


End file.
